Chapter 1 - Discus Keeping theory
Chapter 3 - Tank size and Filtration
Introduction
Discus, the fish, the hobby and the obsession
Discus. The king of the aquarium. Graceful, stunning, rewarding, addictive and expensive all in one. They are fish that deserve admiration and devotion and will reciprocate the love and attention by showing off their beautiful, stunning colors and peculiar and unique behavior to you to enjoy for many years to come. They are like pack of puppies when happy, come when they are called, they can be taught trust, are used to routine and each and every one have their own unique personality.
I am not claiming to be an extremely experienced discus keeper. These articles are simply a compilation of all the very good advice and references that I have come across while researching the topic of Discus and will be written in the point of view of a new discus keeper. I have however kept fish since my pre-teen years and have "evolved" to appreciate the elegance and the sheer joy of keeping really nice fish. And aren't they stunning subjects to watch! This is one reason why I decided to start keeping discus for if you have ever been lucky enough to watch a fully-grown male and female discus pair in their magnificent splendor as they float gracefully around the tank then you would agree also.
Tropical fish in general are not like other fish. True that all fish are different, and have different personalities but in general tropical fish are very different in behavior to cold water gold fish. I for one grew up with gold fish and I have always found that tropicals are livelier, more colorful, more intelligent and generally much more interesting that the common gold fish varieties. With the exception of a few species such as giant Koi, which I will not go into. Discus are truly sit on the higher branches of the tropical fish keeping tree.
This is information that I gathered from Books, the internet and personal experiences about how to start keeping discus. I will touch on quarantine methods, tank setup, general disease prevention techniques, selection of fish and other basic areas that one should know about if one wanted to start keeping discus successfully. I will be quoting a lot of stuff from Jim E Quarles' book Discus as a Hobby. I highly recommend this book if you want to start out on keeping discus and will be quoting it a lot without proper referencing but I do give the man full credit in what I know of discus keeping. I will also quote a lot of information from the Diskus Brief, a quarterly publication that (is sadly) discontinued. Diskus Brief magazine is of phenomenal value to any discus enthusiast and I highly recommend it. There are also other books that I recommend and you will find these in the Recommended Reading chapter.
Let me issue my warning now before we continue. Discus fish are not just a hobby, it’s an obsession. If you start keeping discus there is no turning back! You have caught the disease that infects more and more people around the world. There is no cure either! You can only quench your desire by buying more fish, more tanks and devoting more and more time. This is the magnitude of the discus allure. But hey, there are worst addictions than discus!
Before I go on any further I would like to take this opportunity to thank a few people for their endless amounts of unbiased, unselfish and very kind advice as it was these people who first infected me with discus fever and drove me to strive for bigger and better things for my fish. Don Lee, moderator of Simply Discus, buddy I blame you for my obsession! But seriously thank you so much! Carol, April, John and Al from Simply Discus as well who are top notch for advice and knowledge. Collectively they are the discus encyclopedia that I have been looking to buy for so long. I want to thank all the members of Simply Discus, you guys rock! I want to especially thank Tony, Ari and Scott of Simply as well who have been great friends and not just good sources of information. I know I have forgotten many people but truly it was not intentional. My fish and I thank you from the bottoms of our hearts.